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We were the international Jewish Coalition Against Sexual Abuse/Assault (JCASA); and were dedicated to ending sexual violence in Jewish communities globally. We did our best to operate as the make a wish foundation for Jewish survivors of sex crimes. In the past we offered a clearinghouse of information, resources, support and advocacy.

Wednesday, January 01, 1986

Sharon Lowenstein is one of the first Jewish survivors of incest to speak out publicly about being abused by her father. Her bravery has helped thousands of survivors since her historic article was published in Moment Magazine back in 1986. Sharoncurrently is a Kansas and Missouri collaborative law attorney, author, mediator and mediator trainer in Greater Kansas City.

“Incest” is a word not spoken in the Jewish community. That
means Jews don’t talk about it. It does not mean that they
don’t do it.

I am a middle-aged professional woman and Jewish
communal leader. I am married to a successful businessman,
and we have raised children, now grown, who share our
Jewish values. Our family is seen as exemplary, and indeed
it is. My family of origin was also seen as exemplary, which
in fact it was not. I am an adult survivor of prolonged child
sexual abuse and of a failed teenage suicide attempt.

I have met a number of other Jewish victims. I know that
incest and child molestation occur in Jewish families. I know
that Jews prefer not to confront this issue. And I know how
much denial brings further harm to victims and adds to
family and community disinergration.

I share my story because I know for a fact that among the
perpetrators are not only marginal Jews, but also Jewish
leaders and Talmud scholars. They are not only men (and
some women) who are obviously sick, but also respected
physicians, attorneys and businessmen. To my great shock-
even I can still be shocked-I recently learned that a very dear
male Jewish friend is yet another perpetrator.

Perpetrators may or may not be deeply involved in the
Jewish community, but I have yet to meet a victim who
involvement is as extensive as mine. We Jews traditionally
have maintained high standards for individual conduct and
family life not only because Judaism teaches ethical precepts
and oral values but also because we have considered our
community better off without those Jews who “don’t fit.”
With the community’s tacit approval, such people simply
drift away from us, into the larger society. Ironically, it is
the victims who are again victimized; feeling themselves
terribly unworthy , they are likely to accommodate the
community by “dropping out.” The perpetrators are more
likely to remain within.

As a child trapped in an incestuous relationship-my father
molested me from infancy until I left for college-I understood
that I was treif (not kosher). Every victim knows that
feeling. I have not yet, however, met another who managed to
find refuge-as I did-in the synagogue and in the Jewish
community. I did this by so thoroughly blocking conscious
knowledge of my nighttime life that I could continue to think
of myself as innocent. This form of extreme denial enabled me
to develop a strong Jewish identity and later to take a
husband, but id did not protect me from brutal self-hatred
and repudiation of femininity.

When we are forced to acknowledge that incest exists amongus, we prefer to think it occurs only in “bad” or “sick
families. But while incestuous families indeed aberrant, they
often appear to be “healthy , normal”.

My family attended shul with some regularity. I sat with my
mother in the women’s balcony and watched my father daven
(pray) with great sincerity in the pews below. My parents,
of modest means, were respected as hardworking, good
family and synagogue people who lived in accordance with
somewhat loosely defined expectations for observance in
midwestern Orthodoxy.

My father, a delivery man and salesman, had a solid
reputation for generosity and integrity. A man who was, in
my mother’s eyes, “honest to a fault,” he had a habit of
bringing home strangers who needed a meal or an
opportunity to earn a few dollars for household work. A
few years after I had left for college and established a life of
my own, he killed himself. For months afterwards, my mother
received condolence notes with small checks for repayment
of loans my father had made to people unknown to her. We
wonder how “good” people can do bad things; we accept
character references as a defense for a man accused of child
molestation. But such references say nothing about the man’s
guilt, only about his capacity for deception, of self, others-
and about our desire to be deceived.

My mother, articulate but tactful, worked hard, ably
managed limited resources, made most of the family’s
decisions and maintained a well-kept home. Before her
Depression-era marriage, she had completed two years of
college and had worked as an executive secretary for a large
retailer. She readily made and retained friends and never
voiced dissatisfaction or disappointment. Sacrificing
without complaint, she thought that appropriate as “a
mother’s role” and knew instinctively how to use her self-
denial to evoke guilt in the family members and thus
guarantee that she would retain control. She gave me love as
a baby but withdrew emotionally as she became absorbed in
her own problems, finding it increasingly difficult to deal
with her growing resentment of me, the “other woman.” I
buried myself in work. My achievements and her friends’
accolades gave proof of her success as a wife and mother.
Strong-willed and proud, determined to see her family as she
wished it to be, she blocked out much-I learned the technique
from her-and lied about the rest.

We are repulsed by incest and child abuse and see no need to
talk about it. Secrecy, however, is the ally of the
perpetrator. It enables the perpetrator to continue the abuse
and the spouse/collaborator to maintain her marriage. But
secrecy is the enemy of the victim and, ultimately, of the
community. It permits the victim to continue believing that she

is “bad”, that she is the cause of her parents’ behavior and
that she deserves what is happening to her. Furthermore, she
knows that disclosure may destroy the family and she
believes herself responsible for keeping the family intact-a
feat possible only so long as she continues to be silent, and
thus continues to be the victim.

Similarly, the Jewish community believes that disclosure will
undermine cherished values and family life, and also will
embarrass the community itself. But by its denial the
community abets the perpetrator, entraps the family,
perpetuates the problem.
People who place great value on children, as do Jews, can
still be child abusers and coconspirators, but they must
rationalize more. My father’s rationalizations:

I will never hurt you.

I do this out of love and I love only you.

This is for your own good because you can trust only me
not to hurt you; and

Itis better for you to learn from me than from any one else
because no one can love you as I do.

My mother’s rationalizations:

When you were five, I asked him if was doing anything to
you -- he wasn’t supposed to, he denied it, and I believed him.

When you were a teenager, I asked him why he went to
your room late at night, he said to check your covers, and I
believed him; and

When you tried to kill yourself, he said that all teenage
girls do such things, and I believed him. After all, he always
told the truth.

When I was 15 I swallowed a bottle of sleeping pills, My
mother discovered me. She screamed, “How could you do
this to me!” while he poured soapy water down my throat
and repeatedly forced me to vomit. They walked me for
hours before permitting me to sleep. Soon after, my father
succumbed to severe depression punctuated by hysterical
outbursts. Two months later, they left on vacation so that he
could get a grip on his nerves. Neither ever discussed my
suicide attempt with me. Life continued as usual, and I was
left to survive on my own. After I left for college, I rarely
returned home.

Today I view my father’s suicide as a self-inflicted execution
brought on by guilt. At the funeral, the rabbi, who believed
himself close to each of us, shared with us his bewilderment
and broke into tears. My mother and I did not discuss my
father’s suicide during shiva or afterwards. Like the incest
and my attempt at suicide, it remained a closed book.

I was a victim of “velvet glove” incest; my father used
persuasion rather than brutality. I suspect that we jews find
it hard to believe that Jews molest children in part because
we associate child molestation with brute force, and we
known, of course, that Jews shun violence. But Jews do use
brut force; among us there are also wife beaters and rapists.
I know victims of Jewish family violence. I would like to
think that they are few in number, but the fact is that none of
us knows for sure. This is another subject that we prefer not
to examine too closely.

Whatever the incidence of family violence, however, it does
not follow that the number of Jewish men so emotionally
troubled as to become sexually involved with children, over
whom they have unquestioned power and before whom they
do not have to concern themselves about performance, also is
disproportionately small. In the face of overwhelming
empirical evidence for the widespread existence of the
problem in the general community (only the attention it is
receiving is new), can we afford to remain so complacent, so
assured that the problem does not plague us, as well? Which
of society’s other problems-suicide, drug abuse, alcoholism-
do we know for a fact has passed over us and left us
unscathed?

And then there are the ripple effects: Every suicide is not a
victim of sexual abuse, but I have yet to meet a victim of
sexually abuse who has not been suicidal-half of the dozens
of adult survivors I’ve met have attempted suicide at least
once and I’ve known one who succeeded.

Victims of child sexual abuse grow up as heterosexuals as
well as homosexuals. some go into the most respected
professions, some go into the oldest profession. Many deny
themselves the privilege of raising children because they fear
doing so, others raise abused child, and some parents
psychologically healthy children. I suspect, however, that
few free themselves from feelings of worthlessness or achieve
what they might otherwise have achieved. I suspect also that
most Jewish victims choose to opt out of the Jewish
community or to live on its periphery.

I was more fortunate than most. My mother gave me a good
start as an infant and my daytime father always showed
normal, healthy paternal interest and affection. From my
mother I learned stamina, from the kind honesty of which my
daytime father was capable, I developed a certain
straightforward integrity, two traits that proved especially
useful when I entered psychotherapy. I married a man who,
like my daytime father, is generous and fair minded but who,
in addition, has a healthy sexuality and enormous patience.
he made it possible for me to undergo psychoanalysis.
Neither my husband nor my children learned of my long
struggle against suicide until I had clearly won the battle.
When I grew sufficiently strong to take our children into my
confidence, they too supported me on my journey to full
health.

But what of the many victims who have neither my resources
nor my opportunities?

I consider myself luck to be Jewish, but my Jewishness has
also been a terrible burden in ways that were unnecessary.
Are we strong enough to accept the knowledge that every
human problem, every sickness and every aberrant behavior
also exists among Jews? Do we have the sensitivity and
fortitude to establish an all-inclusive caring community in
which every Jew-even the Jew who is a perpetrator-can feel
assured of understanding and help? Would we lose as many
to suicide, personality dysfunction, apathy or even cults if
such a community existed?

What should we do? Beginning with their outreach to
Jewish singles a few years back, the Council of Jewish
Federations, the Union of American Hebrew Congregations,
the United Synagogue and a number of other bodies have
begun to devote programs and task forces to the problems
and needs of individuals and families who do not fit the mold
of the stereotypic suburban nuclear family. We have at least
taken the first steps toward becoming an inclusive rather
than an exclusive community. Although homosexuality, for
example, remains a subject many of us might prefer to ignore,
the community has begun to recognize homosexual Jews.

But sexual molestation and family violence are not yet
included on any Jewish agenda. I write anonymously
because I want to be listened to without becoming the target
of sensationalism and vituperation--we adult survivors
have learned that perpetrators and spouse/collaborators
who feel threaten are likely to be vitriolic when the issue is
raised. Let us begin thoughtful discussion. Let healing take
place within a Jewish context. Only in that way can we
establish the caring community that will help to assure our
survival as a community of meaning.

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Survivors ARE Heroes!

The Awareness Center believes ALL survivors of sex crimes should be given yellow ribbons to wear proudly.

Survivors of sexual violence (as adults and/or as a child) are just as deserving of a yellow ribbon as the men and women of our armed forces, who have been held captive as hostages or prisoners of war.

Survivors of sexual violence have been forced to learn how to survive, being held captive not by foreigners, but mostly by their own family members, teachers, camp counselors, coaches babysitters, rabbis, cantors or other trusted authority figures.

For these reasons ALL survivors of sexual violence should be seen as heroes!